Jackal
by zosimos
Summary: Mashup: The curious case of a woman found dead with her liver missing catches the attention of the Elric brothers. Written for the 2010 AU Big Bang on Livejournal.


Edward Elric was leaning with his back against his car, both hands in the pockets of his jeans. He was watching the traffic move past the parking lot at a steady clip; it was a little early for the rush hour traffic to get started. The afternoon was a heavy gray, the sort that threatened to rain but never quite managed it. Ed exhaled; his breath was visible in the cool air that was early spring in the north east.

They'd been on the road two days, heading east. They'd pulled off the highway at this truck stop to get something to eat and fill the car's tank, which was where Al got a bug in his ear about a local legend. Al was still mad and Ed was trying hard to stay mad right back. It was easy when he went to sulk at his car instead of staying inside where the wind wouldn't cut through his jacket like it was made of tissue paper.

Truth was, Al had every right to still be mad at Ed. Ed had kicked his reckless behavior up three notches lately and this time it was Al who nearly paid the price for it. Ed sighed, looked back up at the slate-colored sky and waited.

The door to the truck stop chimed as it opened, and Ed glanced over to see Al cross the parking lot at an easy lope. He only limped a little, the final vestiges of their most recent confrontation with an angry spirit. Al stopped beside the passenger side of the car for a moment, looking Ed in the eye before wordlessly opening the car door and getting inside.

Ed looked around the lot a final time before getting in the car as well. It was a habit he'd picked up in the last few years; he scanned for anyone watching them in particular. As he settled in the driver's seat, Ed glanced over at Al. "Find out anything useful?"

"Same old story," Al said. He leaned back in the passenger, his legs already tucked under the dashboard as comfortably as he could manage. "Nut with an ax goes Voorhees on a small town, starts carving out hearts and then after they're certain he's down for the count his body goes missing."

Ed let out a low whistle. "That's some serious horror-movie mojo going on there. Was the guy eating their hearts, or something?"

"I'm getting to it," Al said crossly. "Would you let me finish?" Ed glowered a little at Al but didn't say anything else. "Apparently, rumor has it that one of the people there for the final shoot-out thinks that this particular breed of psycho was possessed by a very dead older psycho."

"Days of our Undead Lives," Ed snorted, unable to help himself. "So, Psycho Ax-Killer Jr.'s body has gone missing. Do we think he's lying somewhere bled out, or still wandering around opening people up?"

"My money's on bled-out," Al said. "Outside of the big dust-up, there haven't been any more bodies."

"Or he could be hiding out somewhere, healing up and waiting for the right time to go off some more poor bastards."

"So do you want to go check this out?" Al asked as Ed drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"How long has it been since this guy vanished?" Ed asked.

"A little over a year," Al said. "This all went down in February of last year."

Ed turned and looked at his brother. "This nut was carving out people's hearts around Valentine's Day? Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Yeah, I know," Al said.

"And there have been no more deaths."

"Not that we know of."

"Al, the guy's probably dead in a ditch somewhere and the local wildlife would have picked his bones clean by now." Ed shook his head. "The trail's cold."

Al made that frowny face he did whenever he knew Ed was right but didn't want to admit it. "Well, I've got nothing else. You got anything?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." Ed started the car. Al raised his eyebrow when Ed glanced over at him. "Winry called while you were in there taking a piss."

"Oh she did, did she." Al said. "Haven't heard from her in a while."

"You are a lying sack of shit, Al, she told me she talked to you last week." Ed shot a look at his brother. "When were you going to tell me?"

"No, I talked to Mei and Winry was yelling in the background," Al corrected.

"Whatever. Anyway, her librarian-chick friend-"

"Sheska?"

Ed glanced over at Al. "Are you going to let ME finish, or do you know all this already?"

Al motioned for Ed to continue. "No, I haven't heard this one. Go on."

It was too late, Ed was already on a new tangent. "How do you know the librarian chick?"

"Mei's talked about her before. I met her once when I flew out to help Mei and Winry with that giant ghost bird."

"Giant ghost bird? When the hell was that, where was I?"

"I dunno, a few months ago? You were shacked up with Mustang at the time; I had to do SOMETHING to keep busy."

Ed and Al exchanged a glare and Ed cleared his throat. "Anyway," Ed continued. "Her librarian-chick friend said that a zookeeper had been found dead in an employee's-only back room with her liver missing. No signs of forced entry, couldn't be an animal attack, nothing. The zoo hushed it all up."

"Harvesting livers," Al tapped his finger to his lips. "That's a new one. Although I'm sure there are several sorts of nasty beasties who just want to snack on a human liver. How recent was this?"

"Just about a week or so ago," Ed said.

"Any other deaths in the area?"

"Not that Sheska or Winry knew of, at least not human. But, apparently this zoo has had a heck of a time keeping its stock alive lately. They've had more animal deaths in the past six months than they have in the past six years."

Now Al looked intrigued. "Some kind of curse, you think?"

"Or it's your serial killer, shifting internal organs."

"Ed."

"Well, it's a thought. It's actually not too far from here, which is why Winry called us. She knew we were in the Midwest-"

"She thought you were at Mustang's," Al translated.

"For fuck's sake," Ed groaned. "They're in Colorado right now, there's no way in hell they're gonna get out here to deal with this, they're tied up in dealing with some sort of vampire cult at the moment. But it was enough to ping their radar, so she called us up."

"Vampire cult?"

"I didn't get the details," Ed said. "Anyway." He held his left hand up like he was weighing the choices. "Long-dead serial killer, no new victims, trail colder than the bodies he's left behind." Then he raised his right hand up, higher. "Fresh body, uncertain cause of death, possibly right in the middle of whatever the hell's going on."

"Ed, please don't let go of the wheel while you're driving, you give me gray hairs as it is."

Ed snorted and dropped both his hands back on the steering wheel. "So, which is it?"

"Okay, okay," Al caved. "This sounds like a better idea anyway."

"I wonder if Winry's librarian chick friend is hot," Ed said speculatively while Al popped open the glove box, rifling through their stash of maps before pulling one out for their current location. "Is she hot?"

"I didn't notice," Al said, unfolding the map.

"Figures, you were probably too busy making goo-goo eyes at Mei. Did she at least wear glasses?"

Al glanced back at Ed. "Why does it matter? No, wait, don't answer that. I know you." Ed grinned like a shark at Al, and Al rolled his eyes and flattened the old map of the state across the dashboard so he could mark out their route in pencil. "Let's go."

* * *

The next day arrived cheerier than the day before. The clouds had shed their murky gray color and were an off-white shade; vivid blue sky peeked between them. It had warmed up considerably as well; there were hints of summer in the spring breeze. The nicer weather had people out in droves and, despite their map; it took Ed and Al almost a full hour to locate the zoo. It was actually hidden in the middle of a residential area, something neither of them expected, driving up and down back streets and taking wrong turns. Ed only turned the wrong way down a one-way street once, and it was a short one. Al wasn't going to let him forget that in a hurry, though.

Eventually, the boys got their bearings and located the zoo. Ed parked on the street, far from the customer entrance, and got out of the Impala. He tugged a little at his tie as Al rifled through their ID box. "I can't believe this place is open," Ed said as a group of parents pushing kids in strollers passed on the sidewalk.

"It's a business," Al said, handing Ed his ID. Ed checked it, to be certain, then tucked it into the inner pocket of his suit coat. He tugged on the ends of his sleeves to straighten them. "I'm really not surprised. It's been over a week since the murder, and it was behind the scenes. The zoo has kept it quiet, remember?"

Ed wrinkled his nose as he looked around. All the kids and parents were heading up the hill to the customer entrance. It was loud and full of shrieking toddlers, and the smell of animals was heavy in the air.

They had parked near the employee entrance. After flashing their badges to the guard at the gate, he radioed someone on his walkie talkie. Occasionally they got caught in their lies, so a few tense moments passed before the guard nodded and let them through.

Ed and Al were met by an older man with dark hair shot through with gray. He was dressed in khakis with a polo shirt embroidered with the name of the zoo on it. He looked generally irritated at being interrupted in his day to meet with them, and glanced between the two of them once. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. What can I do for you today?"

"Tom Gallagher?" Al asked. When the man nodded, he extended his hand. "Special Agent Al Davis. This is my partner, Ed Martin." Ed shook Gallagher's hand as well, when offered. "We understand you've had a few strange deaths lately."

Gallagher looked puzzled. "Really, only Karen. The other deaths have been unfortunate but there is a bit of danger inherent in this job."

"Other deaths?" Al asked.

"We've had several trainers die on the job in the last several years," Gallagher explained. His face was suspicious. "But surely you knew that, being federal agents?"

"I wasn't aware that zookeeping had such a high mortality rate," Ed said dryly.

"According to official records you haven't had a human death in this zoo for two years," Al pointed out. "Why bring it up, Mr. Gallagher?"

"I thought that was what you meant?"

"Quite a few of your animals have met with strange deaths as well."

Gallagher looked between them again. "Who did you say you were with?"

"Just answer the questions, sir," Ed said sharply.

"Why do you need to know about the animals? Animals die all the time, it's the nature of a zoo."

"We're just being very thorough," Al said.

"Well, I've already been over all this with the police," Gallagher snapped. "I don't see what good it does for me to tell you all the same information."

"We like to get our information first-hand," Ed said, glancing around the standing area they were in. Several employees were filing in the gate and giving Ed and Al curious looks but a wide berth. "Who found Karen Lunn's body?"

"One of the janitors," Gallagher said. "It was late in the evening, and Ms. Lunn was supposed to have already clocked out for the night. She had a fondness for the penguins though, and often stayed late to make sure everything was in order for the opening shifts."

"And the door to the room she was found in, was it locked?"

"Yes. The door to that area is only locked by the last person who leaves when they go home for the night."

"Is there anyone who could have possibly wanted Ms. Lunn dead?" Al asked.

Gallagher shrugged. "Not that I know of. I didn't know Ms. Lunn very well. We have quite a few employees here, Mr. Davis, I can't keep track of all their personal lives."

"Who would we need to talk to who knew her well?"

"Her coworkers in the Arctic exhibit, I imagine." Gallagher said. "Now, I'm very busy and the park is just opening up. Is there anything else I can answer for you?"

Ed smiled coldly. "No, I think that about covers it. Where can we find the Arctic exhibit?"

* * *

The crowds had only gotten worse while Ed and Al had been behind the scenes with Gallagher. Another security guard had escorted them out of the employee area; obviously Gallagher didn't want them roaming around unattended behind the exhibits. Ed had picked a map up from the main kiosk while they stood off to the side in the main pavilion. Al watched the people moving around the main area, souvenir-shopping, chasing after excited children and generally enjoying the nice spring day.

Al glanced over at his brother, who was concentrating on the colorful map he had picked up. "What did you think of Gallagher?"

"He didn't seem too concerned about the fact that one of his employees was clearly murdered," Ed said.

"Yeah." Al looked out over the zoo's visitors. "He knows something."

"The question is, of course, what." Ed circled something on the map. "Okay, so, we're in the main pavilion, so we need to go that way," Ed indicated up the sloping hill before them. "And then we hang a right past the big cat house."

The way that Ed had pointed led past the big cats exhibit, as well as the elephant house. Al rolled his eyes; Ed had been plotting the longest route around the zoo possible to get to the Arctic exhibit. "We're not here to sight-see, Ed. We're on a job."

"I know that," Ed argued. "This is the best way!" He waved the map, and Al plucked it out of his hands with ease. "Hey, give that back!"

Al glanced over it once, and then nodded to where the main path split off. "The Arctic exhibit is that way, Ed." Al attempted to fold the map back up but, failing that, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the nearest trash can.

"My route was better," Ed said; the pout in his voice as he capped his pen and tucked it into his pocket.

"God, you're five years old," Al complained. "We're supposed to be federal agents, Ed, stop fucking around. You can come back some other time to look at the animals."

"Excuse me?" A young woman dressed in cargo shorts and a blue polo shirt with "The Arctic Experience" emblazoned on it had stopped beside them. "Are you the federal agents Mr. Gallagher said would be around?"

Ed and Al exchanged a look of surprise. "Yes," Al said quickly. "I'm Special Agent Al Davis, and this is my partner-"

"Ed Martin," Ed interjected, smirk in place on his face. The employee missed Al's glare, because she was smiling openly back at Ed. "Sorry, we got a bit lost. It's a little crowded here today."

The employee nodded, looking back at the crowd. "Yeah," she said. "It got really pretty out this weekend, and that brings the first big rush of the season." Her smile was sad when she turned back to them. "Karen was looking forward to it, the penguins will be hatching chicks soon. We always get a lot of people for the zoo babies."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Al said sympathetically. "I didn't get your name, miss?"

"Oh! Sorry, I'm Robin Ellery," she said. "I work at the Arctic exhibit," she added unnecessarily.

"You were friends with Karen Lunn?"

"Yeah," Robin nodded. "We were really good friends, she'd been working here longer than I have." For a moment the grief passed over her face but just as quickly it was gone and she had a professional expression on her face once more. "Can we walk and talk? My break is almost up." As she spoke she withdrew a name badge from her pocket and pinned it on her polo.

"Sure," Ed started to say, but she was already off. Al hesitated a moment only because Ed did, and then Al realized Ed hesitated because he was watching her ass. He shoved Ed in the shoulder to get him moving, and they both quickly caught up with Robin. "Was she acting strangely at all before her death?"

Robin shook her head negatively. "Not any more than normal. I mean, she was always a little quirky, so we never paid much attention to it."

"Quirky how?" Al queried.

"It's hard to explain. You kinda have to be a little too much in love with animals for this job," Robin said with a smile. "I mean, she talked about her penguins like they were her babies and I guess, in a way, they were."

"Did Ms. Lunn have any enemies?" Ed asked. "Anyone who might want to see her dead?"

"No, not at all!" Robin shook her head emphatically. "We all loved Karen, she was quirky but she loved her job and the penguins, and you can't hate someone who loves animals like she did." Robin's voice got a little choked up and she shook her head again and sniffed, but kept composed. "Do you guys have any idea who did this to her?"

"Not yet," Al said.

"It's funny," Robin said after a beat. "Mr. Gallagher is always on top of the maintenance here, but the last month or so a lot of security cameras have shorted out and not been replaced." She stopped walking, then looked back at Ed. "Do you think Mr. Gallagher could have killed Karen?"

"Do you?" Ed responded.

"I don't know." Robin crossed her arms. "I've never liked him, but he's the boss, and... you know."

"Does he harass the employees?"

"What! No, no. God, no. If he pulled skeevy shit like that we would have reported him to the Board or something. It's more like, something's off about him, you know?" She waved her hand in the air. "It's weird; I don't know how to explain it." She looked over; they had stopped near the entrance to the Arctic exhibit. Fake blue tinted icebergs lined the nearest portion, a polar bear tank, and the crowd around the fence was a decent size. "I gotta clock back in. Are we done?"

Ed and Al looked at each other, and Al nodded. "Yes, thank you." Robin was looking at Ed, though, and she smiled coyly for him. Then she headed off at a perky walk, stopping to point some children in the right direction, before disappearing into the crowd around the polar bear tank.

"I think you made a friend," Al said, amused.

"Yeah," Ed was still watching where she had disappeared. "What an ass on her."

"Do you think Gallagher did it?"

Ed shook his head, snapping out of his reverie. "All signs point to him. I don't know if he's the instigator, but his dirty hands have got to be in it somehow."

"Yeah, I think so too," Al thought a moment. "Seems kinda cut and dried, though. A regular murder behind-the-scenes."

"Lunn could have been sleeping with Gallagher," Ed said. "Lover's quarrel would explain a lot."

"But still the missing liver."

"Yeah," Ed agreed. "Something really doesn't sit right." He turned about and looked around, it was really warm and he was beginning to swelter in his suit. "Let's at least check out the body before we cross this one off our list."

* * *

They had found a motel smack in the middle of the residential area, across the street from a few fast food shacks. Ed had immediately made for the bathroom once they got inside, and by the time Ed emerged Al had already set up shop across the old wood desk. The room hadn't come with a table, so Al had dragged the huge desk out from the wall. He was currently sitting at it the correct way, his laptop set up and several papers spread out over the desk. "I need a printer," Al said when Ed walked out of the bathroom. "Don't leave your suit on the floor in the bathroom, Ed, it'll wrinkle."

Ed hadn't even left the bathroom yet, and Al hadn't bothered to look up. Ed muttered and scooped up the trousers and suit coat, straightening them out and hanging them on one of those hangers that couldn't leave the pole in the closet. "What do you need with a printer? They're a pain in the ass to lug around."

"I'm sick of having to run to copy shops and hoping that the register jockey doesn't look too closely at what I'm printing out," Al said. "It would just be easier." He sighed and sat back in his chair. "Anyway, we're fucked."

That got Ed's attention. "What?"

"Karen Lunn's already been cremated."

"Fuck." Ed sat down on the bed closest to the door. "Did they autopsy her?"

"Yeah," Al said. "I'm trying to hack in to the morgue's servers to get a copy of the official report."

Ed was unimpressed by his little brother's feat of hacking. "So why doesn't Special Agent Davis go down to the morgue and just use his very-well-crafted credentials to get a copy of the autopsy report himself?"

"Seriously, Ed?" Al clicked a few times with his touchpad. "We're trying to stay under the radar, remember? This sort of town probably still has our wanted posters up, even if we're officially dead." A few more clicks, then Al started swearing angrily at his computer.

"So it'll be a while, huh?" Ed kicked back and grabbed the remote control off of the night stand between the two queen-sized beds. "Guess I'll see what's on TV."

"Not a chance," Al said. He gestured to the pile of papers in front of him. "Since I'm doing the hard work, you get to slog through this."

Ed eyed the stack of papers. "What is 'this'?"

"The complete report of deaths in the zoo for the past six months," Al said. "The zoo is required to keep a mortuary log of all the animal remains they have to dispose of."

"This stack has to be at least two inches thick," Ed looked over the first page. "Okay, funny joke Al, you got me. These are all flies and roaches and stuff."

"The zoo has an insect house, Ed. They keep very precise records."

Ed groaned and took the pile of papers back to the bed. "I just love the bed time reading material this job gives me."

"You and me both," Al muttered, typing quickly at his laptop.

The boys fell into silence as they worked. After the first ten or fifteen pages, Ed got up to rifle through Al's laptop bag. Al gave him a dirty look, but Ed emerged with a highlighter and went back to his pages upon pages of animal deaths.

Nearly an hour later, Al made a crowing noise of triumph. "Got it!" He typed a few more decisive letters and victoriously hit the enter key. "I broke their encryption!"

"My brother, the nerd," Ed muttered without looking up.

"Shut up, I got the autopsy video and notes." Al scanned through the notes and frowned. Ed didn't look up but kept highlighting away. "That's interesting."

"What is?"

"The body had no marks on it, except for the cuts where her liver was removed." Al clicked a few more times. "She was still alive when her liver was removed."

That made Ed look up. "Oh, please tell me we're not dealing with another patchwork monster like Benton."

"It's possible," Al said. "Benton kept his victims alive until he could remove their organs. I'm going to do a cross-search to see if any other bodies turn up with missing organs."

Ed looked down at the paper he was holding, and particularly the line he had just highlighted. "Uh, Al?"

Al made a noise of frustration when the results came back only listing Karen Lunn. "What?"

"I got one."

That made Al glance over at Ed. "You got one what?"

"I have a body with missing organs." Ed held up the paper. "A baboon, actually." Ed glanced back at the paper. "It was found dead in its enclosure, and according to the autopsy, its chest was sliced open and the lungs were missing." Ed frowned. "They do autopsies on baboons?"

"It's not called an autopsy for an animal, Ed, it's called a necropsy. Anyway, it wasn't killed by the other baboons?"

"Nope, this says very clearly that the cause of death was the removal of the baboon's lungs." Ed put the paper back down on top. "Still think this murder sounds cut and dried, little brother?"

"What would someone want with a baboon's lungs and a human liver?"

"Hell if I know," Ed said, flipping through the stack of papers. "That's the first curious death I've come across, although I still have a lot of pages to go."

"When did that baboon die?" Al was pulling up a browser window on his laptop.

"A little over four weeks ago," Ed said, confirming the date.

"A month before Karen Lunn."

Ed started flipping through the pages until he came to a month prior to the baboon's death and started skimming while Al searched. "A month before the baboon's death, the zoo's only jackal was found dead in its enclosure. It had been cut open and its stomach was missing."

"The zoo let its jackal keeper go as a result of the death," Al said, reading over a few articles.

"Revenge killings?" Ed wondered.

"Why kill a baboon? Or Lunn? It doesn't make any sense, check further back." Ed flipped obediently back while Al kept searching.

"Nothing," Ed said dejectedly, scanning over the deaths of that week. "Lots of bugs, a few fish and a hawk."

"A hawk," Al said, said, seizing on that. "How'd the hawk die?"

"Eviscerated by the other birds of prey in the enclosure," Ed said. "They couldn't find half his entrails, they figured that the viscera was devoured by the other carrion birds."

"Or it could have been killed by whatever killed the jackal, the baboon, and Karen Lunn."

"Interestingly enough," Ed said, flipping back further. "Prior to that there were a whole lot less deaths over all. That must be the start of it, the hawk's death."

"That puts the start of the cycle in December," Al said, typing quickly. "It syncs up with the moon phases, too. That reeks of a ritual."

"I think maybe I should go have another little chat with Gallagher," Ed said.

"No."

Ed paused. "Why not?"

Al closed his laptop decisively. "Because I'm going to have another little chat with Gallagher. You're going to go talk with Lunn's friend."

"What, the girl from today?"

"Yeah," Al said. "She was interested in you; she might tell you something we didn't get before."

Ed looked down at the papers spread before him. "Sure you're not gonna want backup with Gallagher?"

Al grinned at his brother. "I'm a big boy, Ed. I think I can take care of myself."

* * *

Ed woke with a snort, his head on the desk. He had taken Al's seat when Al had gotten up to stretch his legs and make some phone calls he didn't want Ed overhearing. Of course Ed couldn't help being curious as to the content of those phone calls, but they were still trying to trust each other. Ed wouldn't help that all by badgering and besides, he had to hope Al would realize how pathetically hungry his older brother would be upon waking and have gone for burgers and beer.

However, it was now dark out and Ed had woken up to the pale glow of the screensaver on Al's laptop. Ed yawned and scratched his head, glancing at the clock across the room from him. Oddly enough, the red LED digits blinked 12:00 at him as if there had been a power loss. Al's laptop hadn't kicked off, and the general electronic hum of the room seemed intact, so whenever the power died it had since been restored.

Al wasn't back yet, though. Ed grabbed his cell phone from where it sat beside the laptop on the desk and frowned when it wouldn't power on. It couldn't possibly need charging, he just charged it. They hadn't run across any entities that would have drained the cell battery and not Al's more powerful laptop battery. Ed stood up and decided to check and see if Al had taken the Impala or not.

When Ed opened the door, he was confronted with a thousand violent eyes looking every which way but him. The sudden movement of the door made every single unblinking orb turn and focus on him.

Ed's stomach dropped. He slammed the door as the thick black hands lunged for him, forcing the door back into its frame and locking it. Several severed tentacle-like hands waved limply at him from the floor. Ed kicked at one, and when he looked back up the motel room was gone and the world was that white color with no definition. Ed took a step away from the door and spun. The motel room door was not the same as it was, it was those monumental black doors he had seen in that bastard's transmutation circle. The doors were blank, and that confused Ed. The last time he had seen these doors there were some kind of archaic symbols that crossed the doors. What was the difference?

But those doors had taken someone else. Ed had just witnessed it, these were his doors, and when they opened the hands were going to come for him...

Ed could sense someone behind him. As much as he didn't want to, Ed turned around and put his back to the doors. To his surprise, the figure standing behind him ... was himself.

It was him but ... not really. It was as if something else was wearing his face. His hair was long and dirty, tangled as if it hadn't seen a brush in months. His clothing was tattered and patched, and his eyes weren't right. They looked flat, like the lights were on but no one was home. This strange, not-quite doppelganger looked directly at Ed and said archly, "This changes things." He looked beyond Ed, to the doors behind him.

Ed glanced over his shoulder at the doors, but they hadn't moved. However, there was the faintest image on them now that he could make out, the symbol that was on the inside of his father's journal. He glanced back to his apparition but it was gone, replaced by Castiel.

Castiel wasn't looking at Ed at all, but at the doors behind him as well. "Most unexpected," the angel murmured, before looking back at Ed. His words echoed Ed's doppelganger's. "This changes things."

This was beginning to get frustrating. Ed was losing patience with everyone, no matter how terrifying he found the giant doors and what hid behind them. "What does it change?" He started to say, taking a step toward Castiel. The grating sound of stone on stone distracted him, an Ed turned his head. The hands were pushing their way through the door, and they were coming for him. Ed turned back to Castiel, but the angel seemed further away than ever. He felt the hands grab at his clothing and hair, felt them wrap around his arms and legs as he tried to run for it, reaching for Castiel -

Al looked up as Ed thrashed himself to the floor, tangled in the sheets of his bed, the one closest to the door. Al had relocated to his bed with his laptop; he had been watching the autopsy video and doing a bit more research on the actual human deaths that had occurred at the zoo over the past ten years. Ed came up from the ground wild-eyed and hair tousled.

"Jeez, Ed, you okay?" Al asked, and Ed's head turned and he stared at Al for a long moment, like he didn't recognize him. Al opened his mouth again, and then closed it as Ed took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. "Another nightmare?"

"No," Ed said shakily, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Just, me and that Playboy bunny were getting a little too frisky in the hot tub." He pulled at the sheets still wrapped around his legs before freeing himself to stand. Ed levered himself up off the ground and stalked over to where the last of the beer he'd bought earlier sat.

"Was it the gate again?" Al asked. "Or hell?"

Ed felt a trill of fear in his gut that the warm beer did nothing to help. "Don't call it that," he said hoarsely.

Al bit his bottom lip, and then sighed. "Ed, I can't help if you won't talk to me," he said finally.

Ed slammed the beer can down on the dresser. "I told you already," he said angrily.

"Yeah," Al said. "Playboy bunny, right." He watched Ed with concern as Ed stormed off into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. After a few long seconds, the shower started running. Al sighed again and picked up his phone, pressing one of the numbers set on speed dial. If Ed wouldn't let Al help him, maybe he'd listen to someone else.

* * *

The next day dawned bright and sunny, with scarcely a cloud in the sky. Ed and Al parted ways at the zoo entrance, with Ed in plain clothes going through the customer entrance and paying for admission like a good tourist, and Al walking up to the employee entrance, again in his suit and this time with sunglasses.

The guard was the same one from yesterday, and recognized Al. "Mr. Gallagher isn't here today," he told Al gruffly, not even reaching for his walkie talkie to confirm.

"On a Monday?" Al wasn't impressed, especially since they had been sitting in the Impala for an hour waiting for the zoo to open. "I could have sworn I saw Mr. Gallagher's car come through the employee gate."

"You'd have been mistaken." The guard was one cool customer, Al was impressed. He didn't even flinch at Al as Al glowered at him.

"Okay then," Al said. "You're going to let me into the park to look around, do you know why?"

"I'm not going to let you in anywhere," the guard said, one hand on his radio.

"Oh yes you are," Al said. He pulled out his badge and put it against the guard's window. "This little badge says you're going to. Or else would you like to come with me and have a little chat about protocol regarding a federal agent's investigation?"

The guard glared sullenly at Al, and turned his back to him, holding his walkie talkie close to his mouth so Al couldn't overhear his words. Al didn't put away his badge until the guard pressed the button that would let Al through the employee entrance door. "Mr. Gallagher will see you in his office," he said shortly. Al smiled coldly at the man.

"Thank you."

Al walked through the doors and found himself unattended in the open employee entranceway. He glanced around, but Gallagher was nowhere to be seen. "I guess it would be too much to ask for someone to have told me where his office IS," Al muttered to himself, before picking a direction and heading that way.

After finding and talking to two different employees, Al got turned in the right direction. Apparently the offices were in a building just off the customer entrance, adjacent to one of the larger and nicer souvenir shops. Al looked very official and no one stopped him, and in fact directed him to where he needed to go with very few questions.

Gallagher was not in his office, but the door was open. He didn't have a secretary and his office was small, not nearly as opulent as Al had imagined. The desk was crammed into a tiny room, and the walls were lined with books and various knick knacks from the souvenir shop, relics of different exhibits long since closed. Papers were scattered all over his desk, and Al glanced casually at them.

"Agent Davis."

Al looked up. Gallagher was standing in the door, dressed more for business than he had been yesterday. He did not look happy to see Al, which didn't surprise Al at all. "Good morning, Mr. Gallagher," Al said.

"I can't say it's good to see you again so soon," Gallagher said. Al stepped aside so Gallagher could work his way around to the other side of the desk. "What can I help you with today?"

"You could start with why you instructed your guard not to let me in," Al said pleasantly.

"It's not personal, Agent Davis." Gallagher sat down and placed the files he had been carrying on his desk, intentionally obscuring some of the papers he had laying out. "I'm very busy right now, I had my guard simply discourage all visitors, not just you."

"Mmhm." Al didn't sit. "I have a few questions about some odd deaths you've had here in the last few months."

"Ms. Lunn is the only death we've had in a while," Gallagher said, clearly confused.

"I was referring to a baboon that was killed nearly a month prior. The lungs of this animal were missing."

"Probably consumed by another baboon in the enclosure," Gallagher said.

"Leaving the rest of the body intact?" Al didn't conceal his skepticism. "There was also the matter of a hawk and a jackal that were missing single organs as well."

"I don't understand," Gallagher said. "What do these animal deaths have to do with Karen Lunn?"

Al studied the wall of Gallagher's office. "Your security cameras in the Arctic exhibit were disabled or just entirely disconnected. Why?"

"We're in a recession right now; this zoo isn't doing so well." The skin around Gallagher's eyes was getting tight, he was clearly getting angry. "I am lucky to be able to maintain what I have. Did you have anything concrete, Agent Davis, or are you just here to interrogate me about the upkeep of my animals?"

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Gallagher," Al said. "You've been far more helpful than you know."

* * *

When Robin Ellery showed up for work that day, she was surprised to see the federal agent from the day before standing in the open pavilion, this time dressed in jeans and a button-down. The sun had come out bright and full today, there was no need for a jacket, and he had rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, obviously underestimating how warm it was going to get.

The crowd was pretty robust for a Monday, but it was mostly schools bringing kids out for pre-spring break field trips. Robin waded through a mess of third graders to get to the agent, who hadn't seen her and was staring with an intense expression at a list of coffee.

"I like the Jungle Java," Robin offered up, and he turned to look at her, a little surprised. Then he paled and attempted to surreptitiously look for a clock. "Were you waiting for me, Agent Martin?"

"I, uh." He glanced around, and, realizing he was caught, rolled with it. "Yeah, I was. You're a little bit early."

"I like to wander around the zoo before my shift," she said with a smile. "You want some coffee? Hang on a moment." Robin moved up to the side of the line and motioned one of the workers over. After a quick whispered conversation, she returned, two cups of coffee in hand. "I hope you didn't have a preference."

"Why Ms Ellery, are you flirting with me?" He looked more tired than yesterday but was obviously trying to hide it. He accepted the coffee gratefully and Robin snorted in amusing. "Thanks."

"I thought you got all you needed yesterday, so why are you back here?" Robin queried as they moved out of the way of the line, standing back in the area with the picnic tables. "If you don't mind me asking, Agent Martin…"

"Please," the man groaned. "Call me Ed. It's too early to deal with special agent whatever crap." He nursed his coffee and squinted in the morning sun as a teacher chased after a group of elementary school kids who had decided to split off into three distinct packs.

"Ed," Robin said thoughtfully. "This isn't early at all, you should try a morning shift, they get here at four thirty."

"In the morning?" Ed said.

"The majority of the animals require around the clock care," Robin said. "There's usually at least one person on an overnight shift for every exhibit."

"Who was the night shift for the Arctic exhibit the night that Karen was killed?" Ed asked.

Robin sighed. "We didn't have anyone; we haven't had a night shift person in a few weeks." At Ed's disbelieving stare she shrugged. "Budget cuts. The night shift stays later and the day shift comes in earlier, cuts out having to pay for a night shift person."

"Awfully convenient," Ed murmured.

"You don't think that Gallagher fired the guy on purpose?" Robin said, wide-eyed.

"Can't say for certain." Ed tossed his empty coffee cup in the garbage. "There are a few things that don't seem to be lining up any which way. I thought I'd look around, ask a few people about Karen and see if I could find anything else out."

"The cops went over this place with a fine-tooth comb," Robin said with a sigh. "It was horrible. Two people quit." She took a small sip of coffee. "Karen was well-loved."

"I'd like to see where her body was found," Ed said suddenly, "if you don't mind to show me. I could go through the official channels again, but the less I have to deal with that Gallagher character the better off I think everyone will be."

Robin nodded. "I can show you, it's back in my prep area too. That won't be a problem. We'll just have to watch out for the supervisor."

Robin led him through the back ways, to avoid the crowds of kids running from one exhibit to the other. Because Robin was already in her uniform with name tag, she got stopped several times between exhibits to answer questions. Instead of brushing them off, she answered each and every one. Most were kids with some sort of activity checklist they had to complete for their school projects. Ed snorted in amusement as they finally reached the safety of the back room of the Arctic exhibit. "You must like kids a lot."

"You have to, in this job," Robin said with a smile. "It reminds me of when I was little, and our school took us to the zoo."

Ed's face looked a little strained for a moment. "I was never in a school long enough to go on such field trips," he said after a moment. "And even when I was, my dad usually wouldn't let me."

"That's horrible, why not?"

"We moved around a lot when I was little." Ed nodded as they passed a few employees in green shirts and khakis headed to a different exhibit. "There are a whole lot of people who work here."

"Quite a few. There's about a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty people who work with the animals directly, and several hundred who staff the shops and work with the general public. And that's not even counting the volunteers who come every day to answer questions about the animals and do low maintenance work." Robin waved as someone called her name, and then directed Ed into a different area. "This is the back room area that we all worked in," she said, showing Ed a small concrete office. "I'm sorry, I'll be right back, the supervisor is hollering for me and I have to check on the seals before I clock in."

Ed nodded as Robin ran off, and then looked around the room. The floor was concrete, with a low drain set in the center. There was a faint brown stain near the drain that hadn't washed off yet, Ed could easily guess its source. The rest of the room looked undisturbed, but the police had already been through everything. Ed checked out the door, but no one was paying him any attention currently. He looked up at the security camera, but just like Robin said the little red light that indicated it was working was off, and the wires were out of the wall.

He pulled out his EMF detector and started sweeping it across the room. It had a reaction near one wall, but the reaction followed the wall from floor to ceiling, so it had to be some wires. As he swept the room, Ed noticed something weird on the floor where the brown stain washed over it. They almost looked like hieroglyphics, but they were too indistinct for Ed to be certain. He rubbed his finger over them, they weren't drawn into the floor but cut into it. Odd. Ed took his cell phone out, but the hieroglyphics barely showed up on camera. Not enough contrast.

Sitting on the table were some blank paper and pencils. Ed got up and tore a sheet with the zoo's header printed on it and used it to take a rough rubbing of the symbols etched into the ground beside the drain. Standing back up, he folded the paper carefully and was tucking it into his jeans pocket as Robin stuck her head back into the room.

"I'm so sorry," Robin said. "But my supervisor's having a fit that I let you back here without a warrant, federal agent or not."

"It's okay," Ed said. "I have to get going anyway." He smiled at Robin and she blushed a little. "Hey, if you think of anything else about Karen or anything suspicious, give me a call?" Ed wrote his cell number out on a piece of paper from the desk and gave it to her.

Robin looked down at the paper in her hand. "You know, now that you mention strange things, Karen's fiancé didn't show up for her funeral." She looked up at Ed. "Stuff like that?"

"Yeah," Ed said. "Stuff exactly like that."

* * *

"Karen Lunn had a fiancé?" Al's voice was tinny through the cell phone. Ed stood in the parking lot of the zoo, one hand over his ear so he could hear Al better. "How did we miss that?"

"Yeah, I know," Ed said. "And it gets better."

"Oh, how can it possibly get better than that?"

"According to Robin, Karen's fiancé has been missing since the day Karen died."

Al was silent on the other end of the phone. "Missing-missing, or just cut off all contact with Karen's friends missing?"

"The latter, it sounds like," Ed said. "Robin said she mentioned this to the police, but I don't think they listened."

"No, nothing showed up in the official police report about a fiancé," Al said angrily. "Is it just me, or is the police department in this town entirely incompetent?"

"It's not just you," Ed said. "But I've got something."

"Something?"

Ed fished the paper out of his pocket just to make sure it was still intact. The pencil was slightly smeared but it was still legible. "There were symbols carved into the concrete where Lunn died."

"A warding spell? Or something else?"

"Definitely something else." Ed leaned back against the car, and shaded his eyes with his hand. "Looks Egyptian to me, but I want you to take a second look at it for me."

"Egyptian?"

"Yeah, how weird is that?"

Ed could hear Al typing on the other end of the line. "What are you doing?"

"There's a big exhibit on Egypt at the local museum center," Al said. "And they're open until five today. Meet me back at the hotel in half an hour and we can check it out, at the very least we can get a specialist to translate the symbols you've found."

"You find out anything from Gallagher?"

"The zoo is losing a lot of money, both from the animal deaths and now the inevitable lawsuit from Lunn's family. He's got plenty of motives."

Ed nodded, and then realized that Al couldn't see him. "Right, well. Gallagher is moving right up the list of suspects. Did you find anything else out?"

"A little bit of digging let me know he's currently living out of a hotel not far from the zoo." The phone crackled a bit and Ed missed what Al said next. "-wn him out. Apparently death follows him wherever he goes. Did you get the name of Lunn's fiancé?"

"Yeah," Ed said. "Joseph Burne."

"I'll see what I can dig up on him in the meantime."

"See you back at the motel," Ed said, and closed his phone. He thought a moment, looking at his phone, and then back at the zoo. With a grin he headed back toward the entrance. He had a half an hour to kill, after all.

* * *

Al got into the Impala with a glare. Ed grinned at his little brother, who looked indignant. "I said half an hour," Al pointed out darkly. "What part of that was unclear?" Ed looked at the clock in the dashboard and raised an eyebrow.

"The exhibit's still gonna be open for a while, Al," Ed said.

"That's not the POINT, Ed! What in the hell took you so long?"

Ed smirked at Al, and Al rolled his eyes and groaned. "You look like the cat who ate the canary," Al snorted. He then thought about what he just said and gave Ed a look. "You didn't."

"I love it when you come up with your innuendo all on your own," Ed said. "It makes my job that much easier."

"At the ZOO?"

Ed waved his hand in the air, dismissing it. "Anyway," he said, pulling the now more-than-slightly crumpled paper out of his pocket. "This is what I found where Lunn's body was."

Al unfolded the paper and scowled at how smeared the pencil was, but it was still readable. It only took a glance to confirm what Ed had thought. "Yeah, these are definitely Egyptian."

"So, what. Is the liver sacred in Egypt? Who's going to go around and cut people's livers out and leave Egyptian hieroglyphics on the ground cut into solid concrete?"

"The liver was sacred in ancient times, Ed. You know that." Al flattened the paper on the dash so it couldn't smear against itself any more.

"In Egyptian lore specifically."

"I can't think of any off-hand that reference the liver in particular. I do have Bobby double-checking to be sure."

Ed scrubbed a hand over his face in mild irritation. "We're missing something, we've got to be. That liver is going to be used in some sort of weird arcane ritual and we need to stop it."

"No shit, Sherlock." Al drummed his fingers on the window frame as he stared out the passenger side window.

"Did you find anything on Burne?" Ed asked, trying to keep the conversation from falling into an awkward silence.

Al started to roll down the passenger's side window; the sun was bright and hot. "Just that the name is ridiculously common in this area. I came up with fifteen Joseph Burne's, seven Joey Burne's, three Joe Burne's and one Josephina Burne."

Ed snorted. "I vote we check out the last one first."

"Ha ha," Al said. "You would. C'mon, I want to get to the museum before they close for the night, we can check out the twenty some-odd addresses I have for Joseph Burne in this city later."

"Yeah," Ed said as they moved forward about ten feet before the traffic light change again. "Tell that to the traffic around here."

* * *

While the zoo had even been crowded for a Monday, there was next to no one at the museum. They parked relatively close to the front entrance of the museum complex. There was only one bus in the parking lot, and the rest were a scattering of normal cars.

Ed craned his neck and looked up at the huge half-domed ceiling in the main rotunda of the museum while Al paid for their tickets. Ed knew better than to rock-paper-scissors the purchase of the tickets with Al, so they had flipped a coin.

"This place is cool," Ed said as Al walked back over to him. He glanced up at the painted murals on the walls depicting the museum's former occupation as a train station. Al handed Ed his ticket to the exhibit.

"C'mon, we've only got an hour," Al said. "The ticket-taker said that the curator in charge of the exhibit usually is around, so if we had any questions about having some hieroglyphics translated we should be able to find him there."

"So we're playing tourists this time?" Ed checked.

"Something like that."

The Egyptian exhibit was set up with large fake pillars marking the entrance. There were several people milling around that entrance, looking at display cases so it was clear that this exhibit was currently the main draw for the museum. Ed and Al walked through the entrance, each scanning over the main room.

There was a large, fake replica of four statues from the Great Temple at Abu Simbel that Al stopped beside. The statues were almost taller than he was and there were photographs of the actual thing that showed the vast grandeur of the ancient civilization. Ed wandered away from Al to peer into glass cases full of all sorts of relics recovered from the excavated tombs of the pharaohs.

Ed found a wall full of recreations of the paintings found on the inside of famous tombs. They were covered in the hieroglyphic script of ancient Egypt, naturally, so Ed pulled out the paper with the rubbing on it and began to compare it to the painted symbols on the wall. He couldn't make sense of any of it, the symbols were similar but nothing struck him as the same ... not that he knew what the hell any of it meant! Ed made a frustrated noise and turned to see what Al was looking at.

There was an older gentleman standing right beside him, with gray hair and a strange demeanor. He was dressed in the museum's uniform with a name tag. "Looking for something?" he asked pleasantly.

"I, uh-" Ed looked at the paper and then the wall of hieroglyphics. "Can you read any of this?" He gestured to the wall behind him.

The older gentleman laughed. "Of course I can," he said with a conspiratorial wink to Ed. "I wouldn't be of much use here if I couldn't!"

"Right," Ed said. He offered the paper to the man. "Can you read this?"

The man took the paper from his hand and frowned at it for a moment, mesmerized by the symbols. "That's the cartouche of Imseti; one of the four sons of Horus."

"Cartouche," Ed repeated the unfamiliar words. "Of Imseti?"

"See how there's an outline around the symbols?" The man pointed to the line encircling the hieroglyphics. "That signifies a cartouche, a royal seal. It's more of a signature, so it isn't used often for the names of the gods ... although it isn't unheard of."

"Who's Imseti?" Al had come up behind Ed while the older gentleman was talking.

"One of the four sons of Horus," Ed regurgitated.

The museum worker laughed. "He's only really found on canopic jars," he said.

"Canopic jars?" Ed said. "Aren't those the things they used to store the guts of the mummies in?"

"Hey, Mr. Bausin!" A girl in the museum's uniform waved as she passed by. "Joey's looking for you!"

"Thank you, Kelsey," the curator said, acknowledging the girl with a wave. "I'm sorry; you boys will have to excuse me."

"Do you happen to have any canopic jars on display here?" Al asked.

"Further on down the exhibit, right next to our pharaoh," Bausin said. "Enjoy the rest of the exhibit!"

Ed and Al wandered in that direction leisurely. "How did you know about canopic jars?" Al asked, tilting his head at Ed.

"Because they come up often in horror movies about mummies," Ed said. He smirked at Al. "And you say horror movies never teach you anything."

"They don't," Al said. "You're just a freak."

"You're the freak," Ed cleverly retorted. They walked around the corner of the display into a make-shift "tomb" that held the mummified remains of a king.

The pharaoh's body had been partially unwrapped. Ed stopped beside the display, staring down at the thousand-year-old corpse. Al stood beside him. "Man," Ed said after a long moment. "I'm sure glad we don't have to fight mummies."

Al snorted a laugh and moved on past Ed. In the display case against the wall there were four ancient jars. One was cracked and another was laid out in pieces. The wall behind it explained the process of mummification as well as the purpose of the canopic jars. "The Book of the Dead," Ed said in a mock-spooky voice while Al actually read the text of the plate on the wall.

"Ed," Al said in annoyance. He pointed at the jars. "What do you see?"

"A monkey, a bird, a dog and a man," Ed said, looking at the ancient sculpted and painted faces. "Wait."

"All the missing organs sync up to the canopic jars," Al said. "The human headed one, Imseti, held the liver."

"And the baboon the lungs, I'm guessing," Ed said. "The hawk the entrails and the jackal the stomach?"

"You'd win the pot," Al said. "So why did whoever did this kill real animals? These jars are made to hold human remains. So what's the purpose behind this?"

"Some kind of ritual, obviously," Ed said. "Especially since each one was killed during the same phase of the lunar cycle."

Al groaned and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "What's Gallagher's purpose in all this, though? Is he trying to harness some kind of power? Create a mummified monster?"

"Bobby hasn't found anything yet?" Ed said they made their way through the end of the exhibit. "Guess we've hit a wall."

There was a whole kid's section near the end of the exhibit, where they could sit down and make colored hieroglyphics and other assorted activities. Standing just inside the exit was the museum worker, Bausin, and a man in a dark suit. They stopped talking as Ed and Al approached them, as they had to get past the two of them in order to exit the exhibit.

Bausin smiled at Ed and Al. "Did you learn everything you needed to?" he asked genially.

"More than we were anticipating, but not everything we were looking for," Ed said curiously. "It was a good way to kill time, though."

Bausin glanced back at his colleague in the dark suit. "This is what I've been trying to tell you, Joey. The exhibit needs more to it, it'll draw more people."

The man in the suit frowned at Ed and glanced at Al. "The exhibit is fine the way it is, Dr. Bausin," he said finally. "The museum doesn't have the money to expand it and you know that."

Ed looked between the two men, obviously caught up in some sort of argument they were having. Al stepped in to rescue Ed. "Well, it's a wonderful exhibit, thank you for answering our questions, Dr. Bausin," Al said. He had picked up a brochure and caught Ed's eye.

"Just doing my job," Dr. Bausin said cheerfully, although his expression didn't reach his eyes. Ed and Al bid the curator a good day and headed out of the exit and back into the main rotunda of the museum.

They stood near the exit of the Egypt exhibit but neither Bausin nor his suited friend emerged. Ed shoved his hands in his jeans and blew out a breath. "I wonder what that was about?"

"Ed," Al said, holding up the brochure. "Look at this."

Ed glanced at the front of the brochure. It said "The Mysteries of Egypt" on it and had a photograph of the mummy they had seen. Near the bottom of the page, however, it had listed the names of the curators on it. There were two. "Peter Bausin," Ed said, identifying the old man immediately. "And... Joseph Burne?" He looked at Al. "You're kidding."

"Well, that gives us a whole new angle on things," Al said grimly.

"I'd say," Ed snorted. He looked around the rotunda. "So Joseph Burne - who is Karen Lunn's mysterious missing fiancé - works for the Egyptian department of the local museum."

"And then Karen is found dead with her liver missing, the last of four animals matching up to canopic jars," Al added.

"Well, it looks like Gallagher just got demoted off our list of suspects." He focused on one of the food shops set against the same wall as the entrance. "I am famished," he announced.

"Now we just need to figure out when he plans to do this ritual, whatever it may be," Al said. "And stop him." Al kept walking, right out the door of the museum. Ed gave a pathetic look at the eatery and followed his brother.

"If the killings themselves aren't the ritual," Ed pointed out.

"Now that I know which Joseph Burne we're looking at I can do some back history on him," Al said. "You keep an eye on him, see if you can get into his office and find out what he's up to." They stopped on the steps into the museum. There was hardly anyone entering the museum, even though the main attractions didn't close for another hour or two, the Egyptian exhibit closed early. Ed glanced back up at the front of the building.

"Yeah, because this guy is going to keep the internal organs he's cut out of people and animals in his work office."

"You never know, Ed." Al said, holding out his hand for the car keys. Ed grumbled but tossed them to him. "I'll call you later, be careful."

"You be careful with my car," Ed said as Al trotted down the remainder of the stairs. Al raised a hand in acknowledgement before Ed turned around and started back toward the entrance.

* * *

When Ed went back inside, Bausin and Burne had moved to the exit of the exhibit. They were clearly arguing about something. Bausin looked disapproving and Burne growing increasingly agitated. The bad thing about them having this discourse in public meant that they were keeping their voices down and Ed had never mastered the art of reading lips like his brother had. The good thing, on the other hand, meant that Ed could piddle around the food court and not be out of place while he was keeping an eye on the two men.

One ridiculously overpriced slice of pizza and a beer (they sold beer in this museum! Ed was officially in love with the place) later, Ed found a seat at a small circular table and ate his food slowly. He had carefully situated himself so he wasn't facing them directly, but instead the giant screen that was showing different IMAX attractions. They were still in his line of sight, though, so Ed watched them on his peripheral vision.

Abruptly, Burne was done with the argument. He snarled something and turned with a flourish, heading for the employees-only door. Ed stood up quickly and dumped his plate into the trash. Bausin hadn't moved, just turned around to stare at the exit of the Egyptian exhibit, but he was between Ed and the employee door that had now since closed behind Burne and locked.

Ed lingered by a display case as Bausin sighed. The older curator looked around but didn't seem to see anything, never mind Ed. He turned and ambled back toward the exit of the Egyptian exhibit. Ed let out a breath he'd been holding and waited until Bausin vanished between the two pillars before moving again.

While there was still a bit of a crowd about, Ed knew the basics of a successful infiltration were to look as natural as possible and that's what he did. He slipped in behind a girl wearing the museum's uniform and even held the door for her, which she thanked him for with a flirtatious grin.

"Do you happen to know where Dr. Burne's office is?" Ed asked. "I'm new, and running an errand for the bossman-"

"Oh yeah," the girl said. "He's on the bottom floor, near the loading docks. 'Cause no one wants to lug those stupid stones all over the museum." Before Ed could ask her where the stairs were, she pointed. "You go down the hall and down the stairs. It's a hard office to miss."

"Thanks," Ed said.

The girl gave him a grin and tossed off a wave as she disappeared down one of the many corridors behind the exhibits. Ed watched her go carefully, glancing around. Now that he was back in the restricted employees-only area there were few locks to worry about. There were cameras, though, so Ed made it look like he belonged, while keeping his face away from being fully captured on the film the entire time.

Everyone back here knew where they were supposed to go and not everyone was dressed in the floor uniform. In fact, a lot of the employees were actually wearing clothes similar to Ed's. They worked with artifacts and the set up and break down of exhibits; they didn't deal with the public. Not a single person there gave him a second glance as he moved confidently down the corridor.

The stairwell was enclosed, concrete stairs. It was very utilitarian. Ed was opening the door to the basement level when he saw movement; Burne was leaving his office. Ed darted back into the stairwell, certain he had been seen. However, Burne passed the stairwell without glancing at it, apparently heading toward the loading dock. His suit coat had been abandoned, and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up, tie loose. That told Ed he was coming back to his office; he didn't have much time.

Burne's had left the door to his office partially ajar. The nameplate was new, although it was scraped up. He hadn't been working at this particular museum for that long, apparently. The office itself was full of artifacts and papers, books pile in stacks on the floor and some still in boxes. There were several chairs, somewhere, under all the papers and books. Small bits of stoneware and broken pottery littered Burne's desk, and it looked to Ed's untrained eye like the bits of a canopic jar. Papers covered in hieroglyphics were everywhere, completely incoherent to Ed. However, something he DID recognize was a figure drawn on paper half under some of the other papers.

It was a transmutation circle.

Ed yanked the paper out from under the others. He had never seen this particular arrangement before. The form was unmistakable, though. The symbols were all there, just like the ones he'd seen in his father's journal scrawled sloppily in the margins. It was similar to the one that had been painted on the floor in the warehouse where they'd fought the homunculi. What was Burne UP to?

"Do you like the design?" Burne asked as he closed the door to his office behind him.

"It's very unique," Ed said, not showing any surprise at being found out so quickly. Al was going to kill him later. If he managed to live through this. "What's it for? It doesn't look like anything else you've got here."

"I'm not sure yet," Burne said, picking his way around the piles of stuff and standing behind his desk. He glanced at Ed's face and frowned. "Do I know you?"

Ed held his breath. Burne didn't quite recognize him; he had barely glanced at Ed earlier. "Possibly?" Ed said. "It's only my third day."

"What department are you with?" Burne asked disinterestedly, shuffling through several papers. "They didn't send you down to me, did they? Bausin's the one who needs an assistant, not me."

"Not quite," Ed admitted. "I was just kinda wandering around on my break. I hate just sitting, you know?" Ed glanced around the room, and then he held up the paper he had taken from Burne's desk. "This seems kinda out of place with all the hieroglyphs," he offered.

Burne looked up at Ed and gave him a considering glance. "That's because it's alchemy," he said.

"Alchemy?" Ed repeated, the twinge in his stomach reappearing. "What does alchemy have to do with ancient Egypt? I thought that was all scientists and stuff wanting to turn lead into gold, or something."

"Egypt was one of the major birthplaces of alchemy," Burne said. "One of the first and oldest books on alchemy came from Egypt." He got up from his seat. "Would you like a drink? It's hot and thirsty work moving stuff around down here, if that's what you're taking a break from." Ed was going to decline, but Burne had already turned to a sink hidden under a pile of scrolls. Burne began to remove things from the sink before running water from the tap into a glass for Ed. He got himself some water from the tap as well, and Ed watched him suspiciously.

Burne had not made any strange moves, and Ed waited for him to drink his water before he took a sip. Burne downed half the glass easily. "So you're really in to this whole alchemy thing in ancient Egypt, huh? Think you're going to turn lead into gold or something?"

"Did you know," Burne said thoughtfully. "There was a great court magician by the name of Imhotep. He was one of the few non-Pharaohs to be deified by the Egyptians. One popular theory is that he is the same as the Greek Asclepius, who had many contributions to the birth of alchemy."

"That's fascinating," Ed said. "Thanks for the water, but my break's almost over, and I really should be getting back-" Ed put the half-full glass of water on the edge of Burne's desk and caught himself dizzily.

"Do you really think," Burne said, moving the water around in his glass and watching it, before glancing back up at Ed. "I would have gotten as far as I have in these studies without recognizing you on sight, Elric?"

The edges of Ed's vision were beginning to go cloudy. "What the hell did you put in the water?" Ed asked groggily. "I didn't taste anything off..."

"Just a bit of a sleeping draught," Burne said with a sharp grin. "You won't feel a thing, I promise."

"Like what you used on, on Karen Lunn?" Ed tried to fish around in his pocket for his cell phone, but the sleeping potion was doing a number on his coordination at the same time.

"Something like that," Burne said, watching Ed flail around with little interest. "Enjoy your nap, Elric." Ed slumped to the floor, completely unconscious and not once managing to pull his cell phone from his pocket. "Your timing couldn't have been better. I was going to use that old fool Bausin, but you? You're going to play an integral part in these proceedings." Burne smiled and sat back in his chair, finishing off his water. He had plenty of time.

* * *

Talking with Bobby turned up absolutely nothing of value. Al sat at a table in the large local library and rubbed his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping well lately, mostly because Ed hadn't been sleeping well. Ed didn't quite talk in his sleep, but ... sometimes he'd make a funny noise or something. And sometimes he would throw himself out of his bed as if he was trying to escape some sort of horror only he could see. Al hated to think it, but Ed didn't even have nightmares like this fresh out of hell.

It could be that it was the combined weight of everything that had happened. Ed wouldn't talk to Al about it, and every time Al tried to bring it up he just got angry. Then they would fight, and yell, and someone would storm off in a huff. They could never sit and discuss things like rational human beings, either Ed would yell at Al or Al would yell at Ed and it always slid downhill fast from there.

So here he was, ridiculously tired and slightly out of sorts, reading through books so bone-dry and boring they were starting to make his eyes cross. Al had been through every possible variation of the ancient and archaic Egyptian mummification rituals and not a single one was giving him a clue as to what the hell Burne was trying to do. Al closed another large and old book and resisted the urge to put his head on the table and groan. Instead, he rubbed that space between his eyes that always seemed to ache when he hadn't had enough sleep.

He took a deep breath and glanced at the pile of books he had yet to go. Selecting the next-thickest, Al flipped it open and started skimming.

It was an hour or so later when Al realized that he hadn't heard from Ed in a while. Not a call or a text message, so Al sent off a text message just to check on Ed. The museum was long since closed, but Ed probably had wormed himself into something, so Al didn't worry just yet. He tried calling Bobby again, only to get chewed out that Bobby would call HIM when he found something, and to "stop calling every damn hour, can't get any work done if you don't shut up and leave me alone!" Al put up his books and stared blankly at his laptop screen.

"Canopic jars, and mummification, and internal organs," Al muttered, to himself, propping his elbows on the table and folding his hands before his mouth. "What's the link? What is Burne trying to do?"

Nothing was popping out at Al, nothing at Al. He sighed and picked up the pencil he had been using to take notes, doodling idly in the margins of the notebook. He traced over three points, they formed a triangle and he kept mindlessly tracing over and over it again as he thought. He had almost completely obscured the margin of the notebook when his cell phone went off. Al had remembered to put his phone on vibrate so instead of disturbing the entire library it only rattled across the table. The caller ID showed Bobby's home number.

"Yeah?" Al answered quietly, not wanting to make Bobby leave a voicemail.

"I think I've got it," Bobby said triumphantly. "It was hard as hell to track down because it's not entirely an Egyptian ritual, it just started that way. It's some kind of bizarre corruption intended to grant immortality to the conjurer, and it goes directly against the Egyptian teachings of immortality too, interestingly enough."

"How does it grant immortality?" Al asked, packing up his notes one-handed.

"Not entirely sure, but it's supposed to summon ... something. The text I found was rather incomplete in that nature."

"Wonderful," Al muttered. "Idiots summoning shit they don't know how to deal with again. Any idea on when the ritual needs to be held?"

"If I had to lay my bets I would say tonight," Bobby said. "It bein' the full moon and all."

"Thanks," Al said. "We owe you one, Bobby."

"You owe me twelve," Bobby grumbled as Al disconnected the phone. He finished packing up his laptop and then frowned at his phone. Ed still hadn't texted or called Al back. Well, Al would swing by the museum to pick Ed up and with any luck; Ed would have some idea where Burne might be holding the ritual.

To Al's surprise, it was well after dusk by the time he exited the library. He hadn't realized how much time had passed since the late afternoon, and he glanced at his phone again. To settle his mind he dialed Ed's number as he tossed his laptop bag into the back seat of the Impala. Ed's phone picked up and went straight to voicemail.

Well, that couldn't be good.

They never turned their phones completely off, even when they were with each other. There was no telling who would try to get a hold of them, it was a safety measure to just go ahead and keep them on. That as a sign that someone got their hands on Ed's cell phone and had turned it off. If they weren't in the middle of a case Al might dismiss it, but there was no way that Ed would voluntarily turn off his cell now.

Al headed back toward the museum. There were still lights on despite the lateness of the hour, and several cars parked on the far side of the lot. Workers toiling after-hours, behind the scenes, Al reasoned. Al parked the Impala amidst those vehicles to not call attention to it, and got out of the car. The loading docks, where tractor-trailers parked to unload their valuable merchandise would be the best place to try to gain entrance to the museum now.

As Al trotted around to the far side-of the parking lot, he saw a semi parked unattended at one of the loading docks. Al hesitated in the shadows, and then slunk over to the tractor trailer. No one seemed to be around, either unloading or loading the vehicle. So he stepped out of the shadows and walked casually over to the end of the truck, then caught onto the edge of the dock and pulled himself up easily. There wasn't a soul in sight, although all the lights were on.

Al, like Ed, never went into a situation unarmed if he could help it. Al checked his gun before he got inside and made sure the clip was full, and now he pulled it out, flipping the safety off with his thumb. He was pretty sure he was going to need it.

The loading dock was small. There were only two doors that a semi could back up into. Several skids full of boxes and other paraphernalia were shrink-wrapped, either having just come off the truck or being prepared to be loaded. There was a pallet jack sitting unattended near the exit.

Still no one. Al had his gun up and was sweeping in front of him as he came up on the exit from the loading docks. There had only been a few cars in the lot, and they very well could have belonged to the security guards that Al was certain the museum had. Al was going to feel pretty stupid if Ed and Burne weren't here.

Then Al turned a corner, and glanced something out of the corner of his eye. A foot was sticking out from behind several crates near the door. Very carefully, gun out, Al edged around the crates and scowled. It looked like the security guards were not going to be anyone's problem. At least he knew that Burne probably intended to do the ritual here, then. Of course that left the problem of where the hell Ed was, but Al had a feeling that if he found Burne, he'd find Ed.

Now Al didn't expect anyone to impede his progress, and he had no idea if Burne knew if he was coming or not. The gun stayed up and Al stayed cautious as he made his way down the concrete hallway. There were crates and sometimes large stone artifacts pushed to the side in the hall. For a brief moment, Al realized he felt like he was in a first person shooter, and let that thought amuse him as he turned a corner.

A good ten minutes of investigating turned up absolutely nothing on the basement level. He passed by what had to be Burne's office, although the door was closed and locked. Al had paused by it, ear to the heavy door but couldn't tell if there was anything on the other side. The door was too large and heavy for him to kick in easily, but judging by the open office on the other side, the interior of Burne's office had to be tiny. There was little chance he was doing the ritual in there. Al kept going and was trotting up the stairs when a thought struck him. It was too ironic for it not to be the case, and would explain Burne's need to kill the security guards. Al bypassed the rest of the back rooms and exited through one of the employees-only doors into the Mysteries of Egypt exhibit.

The lights were all up in the exhibit, bright and revealing, not kept at the dim and smoky levels they were at during the day. The bright lights showed how gaudy and fake several of the exhibits were, the colors best shown under the partial light. Al let the door click quietly shut behind him, and after a hesitant moment he heard a low groan. That spurred him onward.

Al turned a corner quickly and found his brother. Ed was chained to one of the low-cut stone pillars, seated on his ass. He looked out of it, like he was coming off of a decent sedative. "Ed," Al hissed quietly.

Ed opened his eyes and glanced up, spotting Al instantly. "Al! Dude, you've got to hide, Burne'll be here any second!"

"I'll get you out of here first," Al said, taking a step forward toward Ed. There was a very loud click as Burne cocked Ed's own gun, the barrel pointed at the back of Al's head. "So very nice of you to join us, Alphonse," Joseph Burne said. Al raised his hands slowly, letting his gun dangle from one finger. Burne grabbed it from Al's hand and then prodded him forward with the muzzle of Ed's gun.

"Great rescue attempt," Ed said as Burne chained Al's wrists to the same column as Ed's. "Wonderful. If we get out of this alive remind me to kick your ass."

Al sighed, his back opposite Ed's to the pillar. "Shut up, Ed. Please, just shut the hell up."

The display room had been transformed from earlier in the day. As Al tested his restraints he looked around. The display case that had stood in the center of the room had been pushed aside. On the concrete floor a very distinct pattern of lines had been drawn; some kind of transmutation circle, Al recognized. "What is it with us and attracting alchemy freaks?" Al speculated out loud. "This is all your fault, Ed."

"Sure, blame it all on me," Ed said with a sigh, rattling his chains. "Because I can totally predict and control the crazy that people end up getting infected with."

"If both of you don't shut up," Burne exclaimed from the other side of the room, "I'm sure I can find you some very unpleasant gags." His grin was unsettling. "I'd really rather not gag you. I'd like very much to hear your screams."

"You're fucking twisted." Ed said pointedly. Both Ed and Al watched as Burne vanished out of the room, presumably to act upon his threat.

"A transmutation circle?" Al said. "Seriously?"

"Yeah," Ed muttered. "I know, right?"

"Do you recognize it?"

"Kind of," Ed said affirmatively. "I mean, I recognize parts of it. The triangles are integral, but as to the whole idea behind this one I have not a freakin' clue." He rested his head back against the stone column. "I have such a fucking headache you have no idea. Did you get a chance to talk to Bobby?"

"He thinks it's an immortality ritual," Al said. "Some kind of bastardization of a true Egyptian mummification ritual."

"Makes an odd sort of twisted sense," Ed said. "People do weird-ass shit in the name of immortality." He twisted in his chains. "Any chance you can reach your ridiculously over-long arms into my pocket? I have a couple things you can use to pick the locks on these cheap theatre cuffs."

Al strained his arms against the column but had to give up. "Yeah, that's not gonna happen," he said. "You're too far away."

"Dammit," Ed groaned.

"Why did he even keep you alive?"

"Apparently part of the ritual involves equivalent exchange," Ed said. "And he has to exchange one warm body for whatever the hell it is he wants, which I guess is the elixir of immortality or something. So I get to be offered up to the thing he's going to summon through that fucking circle."

"Well, I hope whatever it is doesn't intend to eat you. You'd give it heartburn."

"Gee, thanks, Al." Ed craned his head back and looked up. The column only got wider the further up it went, until it touched the ceiling. "This guy knew who we were, and knew we were coming."

"How?"

"I don't even know," Ed groaned. "I am so damn tired of every other sicko we run across knowing dad or knowing OF dad or knowing of US and we don't have an clue who the hell they are."

"I hear you there," Al said, as Burne entered the room again, carrying a large bag. Burne had that unsettling grin still, and set the bag down in the circle.

"Two for the price of one," he said. "Did you boys have a nice discussion while I was away?"

"Oh please spare us the monologue," Ed said. "We know you're crazy, you're a wannabe alchemist, and you really want to be immortal. Anything else I don't give two shits over."

Burne shrugged. "Fair enough." He rifled through his bag and came up with two Tupperware containers. He placed first one, setting it on a point on the inner circle of the lines drawn on the floor, then walked the second one immediately opposite it.

"You kept animal guts in Tupperware containers?" Al asked.

"I froze them," Burne said as he set the third and fourth own. "Couldn't have them rot before I could use them."

"You're disgusting," Ed said. "The whole reason you started dating Lunn was to get access to the zoo, wasn't it?"

Burne picked the bag up and tossed it out of the circle, pointedly ignoring Ed's question. "Now then, I think it's time that we get started."

* * *

Ed rested his head back against the pillar, his eyes closed. All Burne had been doing for the past twenty minutes was chanting low, in a language that Ed didn't recognize, but if he had to guess was more than likely ancient Egyptian. His head throbbed; whatever the hell Burne had drugged him with had left a killer migraine in its place.

Burne had thankfully left the internal organs in their Tupperware containers, but had removed the lids. The smell of the defrosting innards was enough to make him gag, but Burne didn't seem to notice it. Al was silent behind him; they both were watching Burne intently and trying to figure out a way to get out of the chains he'd used to bind them with.

There was something about this whole thing that bugged Ed. Something about the circle drawn on the floor that didn't seem right. It was reminding him of something he'd seen before and he couldn't quite pin it down, but it was telling him that whatever this guy was planning to summon, it wasn't going to work.

All of the sudden, the shackle around Ed's right wrist clicked open. Ed glanced over and to his surprise, the old curator Bausin was there. He had several keys in his hand, and when Ed looked at him he put one finger to his lips before quickly flipping through the keys to get Al's shackle unlocked.

Ed couldn't see Al, but he could sense Al's shoulders tense. How had Bausin gotten in here? Was he working with Burne? Why would he release Burne's prisoners? Ed very carefully lifted his left wrist, trying to keep the chain from dragging on the ground while he attempted to pop the latch on the other cuff.

He wasn't quiet enough. Burne looked up and saw what he was doing. "Hey!" he barked. "How did you get out of those chains?"

Ed glanced back but Bausin was already gone. Good. Burne got too close to Ed's legs and he kicked out, catching the Egyptologist in the knee. Burne staggered back and that gave Ed enough time to clamber to his feet as well. "You know about us, huh?" Ed said, shaking his head to clear it from the fog. "Well then, you also know that we get the job done."

Burne struck at Ed and he dodged the blow, catching the next punch on his forearm and deflecting it. Ed grabbed Burne's outstretched hand around the wrist and flipped him. "Al!" Ed called as Burne scrambled to his feet and caught Ed in his solar plexus. All the air left Ed's lungs in a hurry. "The circle," he gasped. "Destroy it!"

Ed staggered back as Burne shoved him into the pillar and tore after Al. "No!" Burne shrieked, and then shouted something else, very clearly in Latin. As Burne's foot touched the circle, it lit up on its own, the light quickly consuming the room. Al was caught on the lines of the transmutation circle, but had the right good sense to get the hell off of them, to no apparent ill effects.

The light that this array shone with was not the lightning-blue that Ed remembered. It was a red color, dark and coiling like the color of blood. It had consumed all four of the Tupperware containers and then some. Burne laughed insanely and threw his hands into the air. "I feel it!" he shouted.

Red coils of lightning were creeping off the lines and coming straight for the closest person, Al, who saw them and started backing away. The room was small, though, he didn't have much of anywhere to go to get away from them. Ed didn't see the small red coils of light, he saw dark tentacles ending in hands from his nightmares reaching for his brother and something within him just broke. Ed let out a yell of sheer rage and clapped his hands together mindlessly. The first thing his fingers found was the chain still dangling from his left wrist and it vanished in a flash of blue light. Ed glanced down at the machete that he was now holding like he didn't quite comprehend how it got there, but he wasn't going to argue its appearance.

The machete cut through the red and black light coils like they were something real and tangible and not made of energy, dissipating and vanishing back into the circle. Al did a double-take at the weapon in Ed's hand. He had seen Ed turn the chain into a machete but was beginning to believe he had hallucinated the transmutation right before his eyes.

"I knew it!" Burne shouted. "I knew you were one of them too!"

Ed held the machete in a loose grip in his right hand, standing between Al and Burne. "One of who?" Ed growled, moving to the left or right with Al, keeping himself between Burne and his brother. He hear Al's snarl of aggravation from behind him but disregarded it, this was too important. He wouldn't let that thing have his brother too.

His machete moved quickly and sliced through any of the tendrils that reached for him or Al, until they started coming at him more than one or two at a time. Ed was quickly getting overwhelmed, and the red and black coils of light started to wrap around Ed, around his left arm where he was using it to block, and around his legs. He became more concerned with fighting them off than with what Al was doing, and Al went for the guns.

Then, abruptly, the lights of the circle faded. Burne looked around in confusion as the black and red light receded into the transmutation circle but didn't completely extinguish. The lines beneath his feet still seemed to hum with some hidden power.

Ed did not drop his protective stance; an Al had managed to recover his gun. He held it, bead drawn on Burne, at an angle from where Ed stood. "The smart thing to do here," Al instructed, cocking the gun, "is to step out of the circle, Burne."

The bright lights over their heads blew out. All three of them glanced at the ceiling in confusion, and then Ed and Al looked at each other. "That can't be a good sign," Al said, and Ed shook his head quickly in assent.

They both looked about, waiting for the angel to emerge but to everyone's surprise, Bausin was standing by the pillar, still holding the keys to the cuffs. He was looking at the ceiling, perplexed, just as surprised at the lights blowing out as everyone else.

"Bausin!" Burne cried, throwing his hands out. "Look, I've done it!"

The old curator shook his head sadly, looking at the charred remnants of the Tupperware containers. "I didn't want to believe it," he said. "You killed Karen? For this?"

Burne snarled at the older man. "She was going to leave me anyway, said I was obsessed!"

"From a very biased third party," Al said, "You are totally obsessed." He hadn't dropped his sights from Burne's head. "Don't make any sudden moves, Burne, or else we're going to test out this immortality of yours."

Bausin shook his head. "Not like this, Joseph. You don't want to do this, trust me."

"I will summon him, and he'll grant me immortal life," Burne said. "He'll take the life of one of these worthless alchemists in exchange for the eternity of mine!"

"Hey!" Ed said, indignant. "Who are you calling worthless?"

Al shot Ed a look. "Who are you calling an ALCHEMIST?"

Bausin ignored the both of them. "Joseph," Bausin said quietly. "That's not how these things work, you know that."

"I hate to break in on this obviously very important conversation," Ed said. "But really, Burne, I'd leave the circle if I were you."

Burne let off a laugh and shook his head. "I know what you're trying to do," he said. "And I won't let you. This power will be mine!" He spread his arms wide and continued the chant in the language that Ed couldn't decipher. Al looked over at Ed, a glance that asked 'shoot him now?'

Then something strange happened. The dark red light of the transmutation circle extinguished entirely. Burne looked around the circle in confusion, then looked at Ed like Ed had done it. Ed still had the machete held in an outstretched hand, and he looked as confused as Burne did. He didn't know where the power had gone.

Al, however, was looking at Bausin. The older gentleman seemed to be rimmed in that dark red light for a moment, before it vanished into the air around him. When he opened his eyes though, the light was still there behind them.

"I warned you," Bausin said. "I warned you each and every time that you were messing with forces beyond your comprehension, Joseph." Bausin took a step forward and the red shimmer appeared around his body. "And now, you've gone and destroyed the one good thing in your life, and for what?" Another step forward. "Some ideal of immortality?"

His form was beginning to shimmer along the edges and Ed at first thought it was a trick of the dim light. With the transmutation circle extinguished the only light came from the other end of the exhibit, or the emergency exit signs that pointed the way free. Bausin began to speak in a low tone, in the same language that Burne had been using. Burne got a clue and began to back up as Bausin approached him, an when the curator's foot touched the transmutation circle it let red again, brilliant red this time with no hint of the black tendrils that twisted along the lines before.

Bausin was gone. Something different stood in his place, something that made Al's aim falter and he took a step back, the gun wavering. The voice that spoke was different, too. Deeper, older ... and unused to the English words its mouth was now forced to form.

"You were given four chances," the jackal-headed man said with a low rumble. "You took each of them. Now you present me with the canopic animals and expect to gain the immortality that few deserve?"

Burne let out a squeak of horror and stumbled, landing back on his rear. A staff appeared in the creature's hand. He slammed it to the ground beside his feet and from the staff sprouted a set of scales. It grew quickly until it was at least as tall as the dark figure. The pure gold of the scales sparkled in the wan light, the red glow of the circle not reflected in its luminescence.

"Your immortality awaits, Joseph Burne."

Al inched toward Ed, his gun still held outright. "Stop right there," he tried, and when the jackal head turned to face him Al didn't waver.

"Do not meddle in the affairs of that which you do not understand," it said.

"Meddling in the affairs of that which we don't understand is part of the job description," Ed said. The jackal-headed man snarled at him and the red light of the transmutation circle jumped to chest-height. The jackal head turned to face Burne again.

Burne was scrambling backwards in some kind of demented crab-walk, scuttling on his butt. The creature stalked toward him and Burne froze in fear. It leaned down and put one hand against his chest, and Burne gave a shout of fright as the red light crept up the creature's body and hand, and then the creature withdrew its hand. He held a perfect beating representation of a human heart. Burne clutched his chest, breathing raggedly.

"You will be judged," the creature intoned. He held up his free hand and the red light didn't seem to touch it as a perfect, glittering white feather appeared between his fingers. "You will be judged on the scale of Ma'at, to be worthy or unworthy of the gift of eternity."

The feather seemed to gleam with its own light. The jackal-headed creature placed the feather on one side of the scale, and the still-beating heart on the other. They balanced even for a few seconds and then, predictably, the heart began to sink, the feather raising into the air. Burne, scrambled to his feet and pressed back against the wall furthest from the scale. He let out a wail of despair as the scale dropped so low that its golden plate almost brushed the active lines beneath it.

"You have been judged ... unworthy." The figure said without raising its head. Burne began to wail louder as the shadows on the wall around him began to move. The Egyptian figures on the painted mural seemed to come to life as large, jackal-like shadows started to circle Burne. Ed's machete seemed to shake in the air and Al knew why, the shadows reminded Al of hellhounds. "Ammut awaits you."

"No!" Burne screamed as one of the shadows took his arm. "No, no wait!"

"You should have double-checked your translation," the voice coming out of the creature sounded like Bausin for a moment. "You mistook immortality for eternity."

With a last shriek, Burne disappeared into the wall behind him, dragged to whatever fate lay with the beast Ammut. The light running along the array extinguished instantly, and took all the other lights with it. After a few long moments, the backup generator that the museum ran on kicked in with a low hum and brought up dim emergency lights. They revealed an empty circle ... both Burne and Bausin were gone.

* * *

Two days later, Al sat in the Impala next to Ed, his elbow propped up against the window frame and his fingers massaging his temple. "It's a stupid idea, Ed," Al pointed out, trying not to focus too much on the headache that was forming behind his eyes.

"We've watched the news and the police bulletins for two days," Ed argued. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he considered it. They were parked in the main lot of the museum again, on a bright and sunny school day. There were several large yellow buses and enough cars in the lot that the Impala didn't stand out, and just to be safe Ed had switched the plates last night. "There's been not a peep about the dead guards and the destruction of the exhibit. Something's fishy here."

"Ed," Al said. "I get that you really want to be thorough about this job..."

"Besides, that jackal-headed jackass did kill that guy."

"Like we were going to."

"Well, we were gonna try to talk him down off his crazy first."

Al conceded that point. "What if someone recognizes us?"

"This is a tourist attraction, Al. They're not going to know us from Adam." Ed had made his decision and got out of the car suddenly. Al sighed and after a moment's hesitation, did the same.

There was a large class of kids in private school uniforms exiting the museum and generally getting under foot as Ed and Al trotted back up the stairs to the entrance. Ed held the door open for a young female teacher with a flirtatious grin, and Al had to yank the back of Ed's jacket to get him to actually go inside.

The Mysteries of Egypt exhibit was still there, but no longer open. Ed and Al exchanged knowing looks, the front of the exhibit, between the two statues, was roped off. They waited patiently in line to get to the ticket seller, and then Al inquired about the exhibit's closure. "Oh, it was just horrible," the ticket seller said with a sigh. "The head of the exhibit turned up dead in his office, a heart attack."

"Bausin?" Ed asked.

The girl nodded. "Yes. Dr Bausin had been with us for so long, he was like everybody's grandfather. And between that and Mr. Burne suddenly tendering his resignation ... well, we don't have anyone to keep up the artifacts currently." The ticket seller looked over at the person working beside her, and seeing that the man was distracted, she leaned over the counter and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "Besides, between you and me, we all figure Burne killed his fiancée and ran before the cops could catch up with him."

Al nodded and Ed wandered off toward where the exhibit was blocked off. There were some official looking men in suits standing near the entrance and Ed thought it better to not give them a good look at his face, and he lingered near a display kept outside the exhibit, in the hopes of attracting visitors to pay the extra expense. To Ed's surprise the artifact actually caught his attention.

According to the display plate, it was a depiction of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Ed recognized the scales instantly, and the figure of the half-man, half-jackal holding them.

"It's quite intriguing, isn't it?" Ed looked to his left to see one of the men in suits had wandered away from his group. "An archaic ritual."

"From a different time," Ed murmured, more to himself.

"Not so different," the man said. "Not that different at all." When Ed turned to ask the stranger what he meant, another man in a suit came up to him.

"Nabisu-sensei! The Director was talking all this time thinking you were standing right there, please, stop wandering off!"

"My apologies," the professor said, and allowed the other man to lead him off. Ed watched him go, confused by the encounter. Al sidled up to Ed then, looking a little embarrassed. Ed glanced back to the ticket seller and saw her wave at Al and he laughed. "Get her number?"

"Shut up, Ed," Al muttered. "Bausin's dead and so is Burke, can we please just put this miserable city behind us?"

Ed nodded, and then pointed at the Book of the Dead. "Look familiar?"

"It's the Book of the Dead, Ed." Al paused, and stared hard at the ancient painting. "Wait…"

"I know, right? Some kind of ritual performed by a demigod. And we were right there for it all." Ed shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet. "Although it's maddening to know that our presence didn't make one damn bit of difference."

"Bausin is Anubis," Al said in amazement.

"Crazy," Ed said. "But demigods and pagan gods have been hiding in plain sight for centuries."

"No, Ed. I meant that Bausin is an anagram. It spells out Anubis." Al rubbed his hand over his face. "I can't believe I didn't see that before."

"Well, who the hell realized that we were going to run across ancient Egyptian demigods while checking out something out of Hannibal Lector's repertoire," Ed said. Then he hesitated himself, and glanced over to where the professors and directors and what have you were having their meeting in front of the Egypt exhibit.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, Al, never mind." Ed shook his head. "Let's go."


End file.
